Thursday, March 22, 2018


Thursday, March 22, 2018
Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

"The LORD God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
 therefore I have set my face like flint,
 and I know I will not be put to shame."   (Isaiah 50:7)

            The Hebrew scriptures do not generally use specific words for emotions, but rather use descriptive words related to the effects on the human body, especially the face. When Jesus overthrew the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, Psalm 69:9 was quoted: "Zeal for your house has consumed me." The word for "zeal" actually means "intensively red", as "to be red in the face". The word generally translated as anger is to be "short of nose", for the way the nose crinkles short and the nostrils flare in anger. In the Ash Wednesday reading Joel 2:13, where God is said to be "slow to anger" (KJV "longsuffering"), the Hebrew says God is "long of nose", that is, calm and not riled up with a face scrunched in wrath. In this third song of the suffering servant from the prophet Isaiah, which is often associated by Christians with Jesus the Christ, God's servant sets his "face like flint", that is, with absolute confidence and resolve (see Ezekiel 3:8-9) for, "my vindicator is near".  God is there, God is present. God is not a God far-off. As followers of the Incarnate Christ, this we know to be true.
And we can set our faces like flint.

Help us, O God, and may we always know that you are near. Amen

  • •       Make a drawing, painting, or poem in your journal.


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